


Nights Like These

by Cephy



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Fights, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:05:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephy/pseuds/Cephy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dahngrest was a damned interesting place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nights Like These

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laylah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Knock-Down, Drag-Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/75692) by [Laylah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah). 



Dahngrest, Yuri realized once they had settled in and started exploring all the back alleys and corners, was a damned interesting place. There were so many people there from so many different origins that there was always something new to experience every time he turned around. Yuri would always love Zaphias, always miss the sounds and smells of the Lower Quarter just a bit, but still. He had to admit that living in Dahngrest definitely had its perks.

They'd found themselves a headquarters with surprisingly little trouble. It was just a little place, which was probably why the larger guilds hadn't bothered with it, but with just the four of them it was a perfect fit. It had tiny bedrooms upstairs for each of them and a disproportionately large bathroom; Judith had practically purred when she saw the tub. The kitchen was smallish but well-equipped. Repede had taken one look at the fireplace in the sitting room downstairs and immediately bunked down for a four-hour nap.

Yuri was surprised, once they got settled in, how much it felt like home. They had their growing supply of guild paraphernalia, complete with their very own banner, in the main room downstairs where they could receive clients, but the rest of the place was theirs. It was warm and comfortable and didn't really feel cramped even when it was filled with friends. It wouldn't do them forever, of course-- someday they would be successful enough to take on new members, assuming they could find anyone who was a good enough fit. Yuri thought sometimes that Raven was considering leaving Altosk and joining them. Just a hunch, the old man hadn't actually said anything about it, and until things settled out with Harry he would be needed where he was. Maybe someday, though. If that happened, they would need to think about a bigger place.

For the moment, though, it was just about perfect.

It was on one of his restless evening rambles that Yuri heard the sound of cheering, the same sort of raucous, hungry calls he had come to associate with the coliseum. He followed the sound to a back-alley staircase and a bouncer who looked at him hard before letting him pass. He went down the stairs, pushed open the door at the bottom and paused there, staring at the unexpectedly familiar sight. There was a roped-off arena in the center of the room containing two people who circled each other warily, squinting through dripping blood and bruised eyelids. The rest of the room was dimly-lit, unremarkable except for the sheer number of people in it and the way the walls were ringing from their shouts.

Yuri took a deep breath, smelling old sweat and dust with a sharp, metallic overtone, and let it out again on a soundless laugh. It figured, really; if prim and proper _Zaphias_ had something like this tucked away in its rougher corners, then of course Dahngrest would have it bigger and better.

He shifted around until he could get a clear look into the ring. For a moment, the smaller of the two contestants looked familiar: a scrawny blond kid with a steel-hard expression. But then Yuri blinked and he resolved into just another nameless mercenary. The kid wasn't bad, though-- Yuri watched just long enough to see the guy pull out a rapid-fire combo of punches, twisting like an eel to stay out of his opponent's grip as the larger man staggered to one knee.

Yuri smiled, shook his head and left.

His thoughts kept drifting back around to the fight over the next few days. He remembered the way it had been back in Zaphias, a blur of sweat and lights and shouting. No one pulled their punches, not even for a kid; both he and Flynn had got their share of bruises, though they'd usually been quick enough to get away without anything worse than that. After it was over, they'd take their winnings and bolt back to their room, split a gel if they had one or just curl up together and rest it off if they didn't. Or they'd spend the night running the roofs and alleys, wired with adrenaline, if they weren't hurt badly enough to sleep. Those sorts of nights, they'd usually end up finding a convenient doorway or somewhere to rub up together-- the walls of their room were thin, after all, and after a fight neither of them could ever manage to keep quiet.

Nostalgia certainly made you miss odd things, Yuri mused, rubbing at a faint scar on his chin-- he'd been careless, that fight, got too close and let some bruiser of a merchant guard knock him for a loop. He certainly didn't miss _that_ part of the whole thing. But-- after, he remembered, he'd woken up with Flynn's arms locked tight around his shoulders and the snap of Flynn's voice in his ear as he told someone to back the hell off. Whoever it was had backed off, too; Flynn had gotten him home safely that night. In those days it had just been them against the world. No responsibilities or conflicting loyalties to get between them.

That part, at least, had been good. That part-- it was maybe worth missing, just a little.

He found himself hunting out the fights the next time he couldn't sleep-- they weren't in the same place, of course, that sort of thing tended to move around. He knew what he was looking for this time, though, and he remembered the signs to follow. It wasn't long before he was pushing through the crowd in the back room of some nameless pub. He just watched for a while, automatically taking the measure of the competitors gathered around the ring, then on impulse he stripped off his shirt and went to join them. When an opening arose, he slid into the ring.

It wasn't anything like fighting monsters; it felt simultaneously more and less dangerous. Less, because he was pretty sure the guy across from him wasn't going to tear his throat out with his teeth if given the chance. But monsters had no finesse, they couldn't think and plan and feint. They weren't the same kind of challenge at all.

The actual fight went by in a rush, all of his focus narrowed down to the moment, to the little twitches that told him when to duck, when to press. It wasn't until the moment he hit the final blow and his opponent went down that everything else rushed back in: the roar of the crowd cheering, the sting of sweat in his eyes and the bone-deep ache in his fists. The twinge in his side where his opponent had landed a wild punch.

The sheer rush of victory, gods, he remembered _that_ very well indeed. He couldn't keep in his grin as he looked around, though it faded a little when he realized who he had unconsciously been looking _for_.

He waved off the next guy who came into the ring, shook his head to the medic hovering nearby and walked away to fetch his shirt. He didn't bother to put it on, though the night air outside was a little cooler than was comfortable. He flexed his hand, testing one swollen knuckle, and tongued the split in his lip that he didn't really remember getting.

Looking up at the sky at night had become a habit, of late, as had searching out the one tiny, bright dot of Vesperia amongst the other stars. Yuri stared at it, letting the lingering effects of the fight fade, then shook his head at himself and started for home.


End file.
